Remembering Hiroshima and Preventing Use of Nuclear Weapons
an article by Sylvia Zisman

Our committee, the NJ Hiroshima/Nagasaki Remembrance Committee is helping convey the true meaning of the recent talks of the visiting Japanese Hibakusha to residents in Union County. The Hibakusha are those who survived the atomic bombs dropped in 1945. They tell of their experiences.and seek to bring about truth and reconciliation by both the U.S. and Japan. They claim that both governments are in denial as to the destructiveness and inhumanity of nuclear weapons and the need to abolish their use NOW.

Their slogan "No More Hiroshimas...No More Nuclear Weapons" has resounded with all the peoples of the world We all live in the shadow of nuclear war. Supposedly this fear lay behind the war in Iraq It is important to do away with this fear and to conserve the resources and dollars wasted on nuclear weapons and war. We remember Hiroshima to prevent future use of nuclear weapons..

Last Spring the Japanese were at the UN in force together with peace activists from many countries to prepare to implement article 6 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Article 6 calls for the total abolition of nuclear weapons. Mayor Icho of Nagasaki and Mayor Akiba of Hironshima spoke in New York for the abolition to come into being as a series of confidence building steps which were agreed to at the end of the last review of the Treaty in 2000.Their hope is that the Cities and Mayors of the world will help to bring this about. and they have initiated this in a world wide campaign aimed at the NPT at the UN in 2005. This great effort has been set back and ignored by the U.S. administration's sundering the disarmament imperatives inherent in the NPT agreement and relying on denial of fissile materials to non-nuclear states.

We need more discussion and education of the public on these issues. Our Committee will try to make literature available at Union County events such as upcoming street fairs. For more information, contact me at the NJ H/N/ Remembrance Committee , POB 402 Springfield, N.J. 07081.

DISCUSSION

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What would mobilize people against the threat of nuclear weapons?


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MARCHES AND PROTESTS

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I don't know whether marches and protests mobilize people against the threat of nuclear weapons, but whenever I read the comments of Zia Mian, I re-dedicate myself to trying harder to raise awareness which I hope will translate to action.In an article in The News International, August 6,2005, he called attention to the Pakistan Peace Coalition, and the Indian Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace. "The leaders in both countries must be taught, over and over again, that the people will not allow a nuclear war to be fought. There should never be a word in any other language for hibakusha.

This report was posted on September 10, 2004. The moderator is David.

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